Arsenal’s “expected points” in the last six. Just how well are we doing?

 

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By Tony Attwood

Thomas Frank has said Tottenham are not close to emulating Arsenal by spending £100m on one player, a jibe that comes in relation to Arsenal spending over £100m on Declan Rice in 2023.   Tottenham have in the past spent £60n on a player (Richarlison in 2022) but have never gone beyond that.

And was Rice worth it?   I would certainly say yes, in every respect, from the way he recovered from the insane sending off last season, to the way he can bend the ball around the wall and make Paul Merson leap out of his seat on Sky (I still enjoy watching the replay of both).

But as we approach the north London kickabout Frank has been defending his team’s position in the league (fifth, eight points behind Arsenal and with double the number of goals conceded).   It is a point they like to talk about down the Lane since Ange Postecoglou, uncerimously sacked after winning the Europa, predicted that Tottenham was very unlikely to spend £100m on one player.

Mind you, Tottenham are still able to supply us with a bit of a laugh via the media as the Telegraph today has the headline Thatch of the day!  which refers to Tottenham teaming up with a hair transplant partner.  (Click on the article if you don’t believe me).    “A host of Premier League players have received treatment in an attempt to restore their locks…” they tell us.

All of this chit chat is perhaps to help cover up Tottenham’s fall in recent times – which brings me back to the last six games table, which now I note (in one iteration at least) includes a new column – that of expected points for the last six games, as well as the actual points that have been achieved in those games.

Now I have had a quick look around the website to find out how the expected points for the last six are worked out,  but I am still not quite sure how they get there.  However, here’s the actual last six table, in case you missed it last time.  And it is worth looking at, not least because over recent years it has proven to be one of the best ways of considering a forthcoming game.

And then, to add to the fun, in the final column we have XPTS – the expected points for those games, so we can see who has overachieved and who underachieved.

And actually, over the last six games, Arsenal picked up two more points than the computer predicted – and indeed Tottenham got a little more as well.   But the biggest overachievers were Aston Villa.

Down the other end the biggest failures were Liverpool, who had an expected total of 9.6 points and actually got three.

Of course, as ever, the only thing that really matters is the actual results of games, but still, I find it an interesting distraction while waiting for the game.   Here’s the table….  XPTS at the end is of course the expected points..

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	XPts
1	Arsenal	6	5	1	0	10	3	+7	16	14.0
2	Man City	6	5	0	1	14	3	+11	15	12.2
3	Aston Villa	6	5	0	1	12	5	+7	15	7.2
4	Chelsea	6	4	0	2	11	6	+5	12	10.0
5	Brentford	6	4	0	2	11	7	+4	12	10.5
6	Brighton	6	3	2	1	11	7	+4	11	9.6
7	Man Utd	6	3	2	1	13	10	+3	11	7.5
8	Sunderland	6	3	2	1	8	6	+2	11	6.6
9	Tottenham	6	2	2	2	9	7	+2	8	7.1

 

So as we can see in the penultimate column, we have the total number of points the club got as opposed to the number of points they were expected to get based on the previous six games.   In short, which clubs are performing above expectations in the last six games and which below expectations?

Now we know that Arsenal have been doing exceptionally well and in the last six games have got 16 out of 18 possible points, more than any other team..  And Tottenham have been performing just about as expected

So if we create a table of the clubs that are achieving beyond recent expectations, we get this – Aston Villa at the top as already suggested, and even Arsenal achieving more than expected.